Congratulations to Captain Simon Henderson for his achievement in the degree of Doctor of Philosophy

Congratulations to Captain Simon Henderson for his achievement in the degree of Doctor of Philosophy

The Department of Aviation would like to congratulate Capt/Dr Simon Henderson for his recent completion of PhD at UNSW Aviation. His award will be conferred in December 2009.

Simon commenced his postgraduate studies at UNSW Aviation in 1998. Simon had to abandon his initial topic area that explored the relationship between LOSA observations of threat and error management and the pilot's company training and standards record following the collapse of Ansett Australia in 2002. He then recommenced his PhD studying Frames in the Flight Deck: A Sociological Approach to Situation Awareness. The aim of this research is to develop an alternative, sociologically based approach, largely drawn from Erving Goffman's (1974) Frame Analysis, and assess whether it can be used to effectively describe, analyse and discuss SA.

Simon's work establishes that Goffman's (1974) frame analysis theoretically supports the major underlying concepts of the SA construct. SA is shown to be a meaningful and observable social phenomenon. Additionally, a method derived from frame analysis is used to examine and analyse the observed intersubjective SA processes. Lastly, practitioner based notions of SA are shown to be equivalent to that of "frame".

Simon has over 30 years of experience in the Aviation industry beginning with the Royal Australian Air Force as an academy cadet. He later became the Air Lift Group Flying Safety Officer. He joined Ansett Australia in 1992 where he became a Training Captain and the Flight Training Development Manager.

Simon is currently an Airbus 340-500 Type Rating Examiner with Emirates Airline.